What does a successful proposal look like?
Applications to the Fund will be assessed against these core investment criteria:
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Impact – proposals must demonstrate their potential for achieving impact and transforming the sector/industry. The proposal should clearly show how the solution will empower employers to sustainably increase their ambition, investment and use of skills and how it will impact upon the contribution skills and workforce capabilities make to enterprise, jobs and growth
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Innovation and additionality– proposals must be innovative on how they address the strategic skills issues of a sector/industry and demonstrate why this solution can only be achieved with public co-investment. Innovation might mean an entirely new idea but could equally be about applying an existing concept or solution to a new sector or context or a new set of partners collaborating together for the first time. Additionality is about showing the additional return on investment for all investors, whether in terms of improved quality or volumes, which would not happen without this proposal. This means applicants need to show that the proposal will not simply substitute one approach for another without any difference in results. Where proposals concern changes in ways of working rather than completely new solutions it will be necessary to demonstrate that this could be expected to lead to better results than would otherwise have been expected.
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Employer Ownership – proposals must demonstrate that the employers they represent own, are driving and investing in both the development and uptake of the proposed solution.
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Deliverability and value for money (assessed after Development Phase only) - proposals will need to demonstrate a robust, achievable and adequately resourced plan for developing and implementing the solution. The proposal should show that a strong team with a positive delivery track record will lead the implementation and that strong and appropriate partnerships have been forged to deliver the solution. The proposal also needs to demonstrate that the impact /outcome per £ spent is maximised and delivery is cost efficient
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Sustainability (assessed after Development Phase only) - proposals will need to demonstrate that there is a robust, well tested and feasible business model underpinning the long term sustainability of the solution beyond the period of co-investment
We would expect most successful proposals to be on a relatively large scale requiring annual investment from the Fund greater than £500,000 per annum. While we have typically expected proposals covering approximately two years we will also consider shorter term projects where the context supports that (for example, a project to build capacity for a future application to the Employer Ownership Pilot. In some circumstances, where the proposal addresses a particular niche area for instance, the annual investment may be lower and we will consider these proposals where the rationale for the lower investment and the impact is clear.
GIF will only invest in solutions that are designed to benefit employers across the whole of the target market or sector and not be restricted to an individual employer or group of employers.
